


breath after breath

by writerforlife



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 18:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17330174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerforlife/pseuds/writerforlife
Summary: Steve Rogers is going to rescue Tony Stark from space. He doesn't know what he'll find.





	breath after breath

**Author's Note:**

> Am I capable of writing anything besides Steve and Tony talking about their feelings and apologizing to each other? Who knows!!

Rhodes was about to turn off his bedside lamp when a knock came at his door. He sank against the mattress, repressing a groan. Nobody  _ truly  _ needed him at three in the morning. Not after he spent all day and then some searching for Tony with all the resources the Compound possessed, then still coming up empty. He considered pretending to be asleep, but the frantic sound came again. With a groan, he strapped on his leg braces and stumbled to the door, the gears whirring to life. 

Natasha stood in the door frame, bags under her eyes and lips pressed into a thin line.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“It’s Steve,” she said. “Nobody’s seen him in two days.” 

Rhodes sighed. “He probably just—”

“We checked the heat signatures. He’s in his room. Bruce doesn’t think he’s slept, and we know he hasn’t had anything to eat.” Natasha’s lips twitched, but she kept eye contact. “We all knocked. Me, Thor, Bruce. Even Rocket tried.”

“And I’m the last person left.”

“All you need to do is get him to open the door.” Desperation seeped into Natasha’s expression; he couldn’t remember a time where he’d seen her with so little control. “We just want to make sure… we want to know he’s okay.”

Rhodes started down the hallway to where Steve’s room was located, blinking against the fluorescent light. Natasha’s shoes hit the floor softly behind him. “You should wait somewhere else.”

“I’m not going to—”

“Natasha.” Rhodes stopped so he could face her. “If he hasn’t opened the door for you before, he won’t do it again. I’ll try my best, but we aren’t going to bombard him with too many people.” He didn’t say that he’s seen soldiers like this before—soldiers who in the wake of ultimate loss, became vacuums of grief and desperation, swallowing anything that approached. Steve Rogers was a soldier through and through; maybe he needed to be treated like one. 

Natasha’s mouth twitched, but without another word, she walked in the opposite direction. Rhodes leaned against the wall. It’d been a long month since Thanos. When he slept, he dreamt of ash coating the Wakandan landscape, gray and green mixed. When he woke, he thought of Sam dissolving without anyone there to witness it—it seemed wrong, dying without someone there—and Steve’s ruined expression. He thought of Peter and Tony, too. Dreamt of them. They were most likely dead, but whenever he opened the master list to classify them as deceased rather than missing, he closed it before making the change. Until he had a body or remains, Tony could still be alive. 

But that was an issue for later. 

“Steve?” He knocked on Steve’s door.  _ Please don’t let me find his body.  _ “Come on, Steve, open up. People are worried.”

Nothing. 

Rhodes knocked again, harder. “Captain!” he barked. That voice had worked on Tony more times than he could count. “Open the door. That’s an order.”

Behind the door, Steve shuffled across the room. The door creaked open. Rhodes had to force himself not to recoil. Steve stood hunched in the doorway, beard even more overgrown and red-rimmed eyes haggard. Blood and bruises covered his knuckles, and behind his hulking form, broken chairs and glass littered the floor. 

“Colonel?” he rasped. 

“Oh, God, Steve,” Rhodey said. “Are you okay?”

Steve shuddered and dropped his eyes. “What do you need, Rhodes?” 

“Natasha was worried.” 

“I was fine.”

“Nobody knew that.” A lump formed his throat when he realized what he could’ve walked into instead. “You can’t do that, Steve. We can’t think…” 

“It won’t happen again.” 

“Why don’t we take a walk?” Rhodes motioned for Steve to follow him. He lingered in the doorway, mouth open—probably to refuse him. “Come on, Captain.” 

Steve rolled his shoulders, then stepped outside his room. Rhodes led him down the hallway and outside the Compound, into the night air. Dim street lamps lit the sidewalk and foliage; the shadows struck Steve’s face, masking him in darkness.

“Talk to me,” Rhodes said. 

“I’m fine.” Steve scruffed his hand through his hair. “Everyone has problems.”

“Everyone isn’t locking themselves in their room and not eating. I’d bet you aren’t sleeping, either.” Rhodey realized he would have to do most of the talking as Steve turned his head further into the shadows. “You lost a lot. You had a rough time before the snap, and—”

“Stop,” Steve snapped. “Do you want to know what’s wrong? I’ve been fighting, and fighting, and fighting since the war. Sam’s gone. I got him into all of this. I lost my… again, I lost my…” Steve’s voice cracked. “I lost Bucky. Again. He died right in front of me. I figure if I can’t protect him, I really can’t protect anyone.” He swiped at his eyes. “And Tony. Want me to talk about Tony? I fucked up with him. I should’ve come back. I should’ve protected…” He stopped walking and sat on the ground. “I should’ve been there for him. He went into space. He made a sacrifice up there, after I told him he would never been the man to do that, and then we couldn’t save Earth. Your best friend, and he’s dead.” 

Rhodes sat next to him, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder and feeling as if he was approaching a man on a ledge. “I regret Sam,” he said. “I wish I could’ve been with him when he went. Bucky, well… he knew what he was getting into. From the war on. He knows you… cared for him.” He watched Steve’s face carefully—his lips twitched, but not much else. “As for Tony, I won’t lie. You messed him up. But he made his choices, too. He carried that damn phone without making a call, and he went alone. He didn’t mean to take the kid with him.”

Steve’s brow wrinkled. “The kid?”

“Peter Parker. His…” Rhodey turned a lie over and over in his mind before settling on the truth. “Queens. From the airport. Spider-Man.”

“Was he Tony’s?”

“Not biologically, but he loves him.” Grief stabbed Rhodey’s heart. Yes, Tony loved Peter. He saw in it their interactions in the lab, in Tony’s soft smile when he talked about Peter, the quiet streak of protectiveness that had arisen in him. 

“Good. He deserves that, at least.” Steve rubbed his eyes and laughed brittly. “He’s dead, Rhodes. I can feel it.”

“No, you can feel your damned guilt and anxiety. You don’t know Tony like I do. He’d make sure we knew if he’d died. So you’re going to pull yourself together, and then you can help me search for him, or work more with the rescue effort.”

“What if you…”

“I will bring him home, Steve.” He kept his gaze fixed on a burnt-out light, forcing himself not to blink. When he closed his eyes, he imagined Tony’s lifeless corpse, eyes staring at nothing, chest still, arc reactor glowing. “He’ll be here again, one way or another.”

 

#

 

Nebula checked and doubled-checked the cabinets of Quill’s ship before she accepted she was searching for something that didn’t exist. 

Even then, she rifled through them one last time, taking care to displace as much as she could—just because Quill was dead didn’t mean she had to like him. Nothing. She studied her empty hands and the empty wrappers at her feet before striding across the ship. At the doorway, she opened her mouth to speak, but froze.

The Terran— _ You should really call me Tony, because we have names on Earth,  _ she supposed—laid sprawled on the ground, tools strewn around him and blood seeping through his black tank top. Again. The wound Thanos had inflicted on him had never healed, not really. She… knew how it felt. She couldn’t empathize, because Thanos had taken that away from her early on, but she could match feelings. His tolerance for pain was admirable—Thanos had let her keep admiration, so she’d look up to Gamora and try to match her. 

After Titan, she thought she’d be tossing his corpse into space in a few days, or even better, leaving him on the planet. He’d stumbled to his feet, though, and they’d boarded Quill’s ship together, despite the faulty navigating system and broken communication system. For the first few days, they’d avoided each other. She heard him sobbing at night or struggling for breath, but he wasn’t her problem. They were merely two survivors, tossed together by circumstance. She hadn’t expected him to stumble from his quarters with days worth of stubble and a tool box and say, “Show me what needs fixing. I am a mechanic, after all.” She hadn’t expected him to repair the parts of her still damaged from Thanos’s torture. 

She hadn’t expected to… grow attached.

“Terran,” she said.

Stark groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position, gripping his side. He was pale and thin. Already. “I know you know my name,” he replied.

“Stark.”

“Lord, you’re actually using it. We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“We don’t have any food. Or water. Oxygen will go soon after. I can last, but you…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. What would Thanos do to her for this moment of weakness? Caring was never an advantage—Gamora had learned that the hard way. 

He nodded, gaze trailing outside. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We knew this couldn’t last forever. We were hoping for rescue, but if I were to guess, I’d say the galaxy is in shambles right now. Nobody’s coming. Hell, I doubt anyone’s even looking.” His face twitched, but he turned back to his work. Discussion over. She returned to the helm.

Hours later, though, Stark sat next to her her, features oddly serious. “Right. So I’ve been thinking about our joyful little chat earlier, and I have a few things to say. I don’t know how much longer than me you’ll live, but you shouldn’t have to live with a corpse.” 

She opened her mouth to question him, then realized he was talking about himself.

“I don’t know how familiar you are with Earth traditions, but we usually bury or cremate. You can’t really bury me. No dirt.” He shook his head, like that was somehow their biggest problem. “So, if you don’t mind, I really, really don’t just want to be tossed into space.”

He stared out the window at the stars with a haunted expression. For a moment, she imagined Stark—who, by all accounts, had treated her with more respect and consideration than anyone she’d ever known, even Gamora—floating restlessly through space for all eternity. An urge to vomit overtook her, even though she couldn’t. 

“So cremation,” he continued. “Please. Keep the ashes if you can. And don’t burn this.” He taps the glowing blue circle in his chest. “If you manage to make it to Earth or anywhere with, like, a galactic mail system, could you get it and my ashes to Pepper Potts? Ask for any of the Avengers, and they’ll help. Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Jim Rhodes.” 

She expected some punchline or light comment, but he gazed at her unblinkingly. 

He, she realized, truly thought he would die. 

And that was unacceptable. 

“If you happen to die, Terran, I’ll keep that in mind.” She stood and went to the helm to try the communication system again.

“Nebula?” he called. When she turned to him, a half smile quirked across his face. “Thank you.” 

Days passed. She watched as he woke and slept, not complaining about the lack of resources. He grew thinner, eyes still bright against his emaciated face, but managed to joke when she was around. When she wasn’t around, though—she didn’t like that. She didn’t like watching him stare listlessly at the stars or the scratched helmet or the toolbox he didn’t have the energy to use. She hovered in the doorway, about to enter, before she heard him speaking into the helmet.

“If you find this recording, don’t feel bad about this. Part of the journey of the end.” He was silent for a long time before he started speaking again, in a lower, softer voice. This recording was tender, meant for one person to hear.

“When I drift off, I’ll dream of you,” he murmured. “It’s always you.”

Nebula’s eyes burned, her chest tightened. She wanted to put her fist through the wall. Or through another person. She was angry. 

No, she realized.

Grief. She was grieving. 

 

#

 

Steve felt watched.

That was, of course, because they were  _ all  _ watching him. Especially Rhodes. Natasha kept her distance and Bruce held his tongue, but that was only because he seemed more worried about Thor—who seemed on the verge of breaking—than anyone else. Rhodes, though, devoted all his attention to observation. Steve thought he was putting on a good show. He shaved his beard, styled his hair, left his room, and even forced down food. Yet no matter what he did, he felt detached. Broken. 

He sat outside in the sunlight, almost wishing for clouds or rain. It didn’t seem right for the world to be so bright, for the grass and leaves to ripple in the wind. Before he could stop it, a tear rolled down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. When he visited Bucky in Wakanda after T’Challa’s coronation, he’d cried and tried to hide it. Bucky told him that he shouldn’t have to hide his pain like it was something shameful, right before he kissed him. 

_ I don’t know who I am without a war _ , he’d told Bucky.  _ I’ve forgotten.  _

There was no war, and they’d lost, but he was still here. 

“Steve!” someone shouted. Rhodes strode outside, waving for him to come inside. Steve broke into a light job, following Rhodes as he continued to walk. 

“What happened?” Steve asked. 

Rhodes shook his head and pressed his hand to his mouth, opening the door to the communications room. Natasha, Thor, and Bruce stood in a corner, all with their arms folded over their chest; Natasha came to his side, but Bruce moved closer to Thor, vaguely pale. 

“You need to see this.” Natasha’s voice trembled. 

The viewing screen flashed to life. Steve stepped toward it, even as everyone else turned their heads away. 

It was Tony.

“If you find this recording, don’t feel bad about this.” Tony looked off to the side, shadows falling over his scraped and bruised face. “Part of the journey is the end.”

“Oh God,” Steve murmured. Dread pooled in his gut. “Is this an old message?”

“We only got it a few minutes ago,” Rhodes said. “Coordinates were attached. I don’t know how he managed to broadcast it, but—”

“We have to go to him. Now.” 

Thor cleared his throat. “He’s in the middle of deep, occupied space. If the wrong people find us, it will not end well.”

“Pardon me saying this,” Bruce interrupted. “But do we really give a shit about that? If he hadn’t taken the fight to space, this could’ve been so much worse than it is already.”

“Relax, Banner,” Thor said. “I was not saying we shouldn’t do it.”

Bruce lowered his shoulder and cocked his head to the side, smiling slightly to himself before turning to Steve. His eyes flashed, and for a moment, the Hulk lingered just below the surface, enough to be threatening.

“He may be gone by the time we get there.” Natasha’s gaze flicked from Rhodes to Steve. “And if he isn’t, there’s no telling what state he could be in. Oxygen deprivation isn’t a pretty thing.”

Steve blinked. He imagined finding Tony’s corpse, blue-tinged and tucked into some forgotten corner of a spaceship, all the things they never said to each other infinitely lingering. The ship would float on for eternity, a coffin seeking refuge amongst the stars but never finding it. Tony hadn’t liked space. Not since New York.

“Steve?” Rhodes said.

A lump rose in his throat. “We’re going to bring him home.”

Rhodes gripped Steve’s hand. “Thank you.”

“We understand if, because of policy—”

Rhodes shook his head. “The world’s gone to shit, Steve. I don’t care what the brass thinks. I want to be there for him.”

“We don’t have a ship or anything,” Bruce said. “How will we get to him in time?”

“I may have a way to… expedite the process.” Thor’s eyes drifted to the axe propped in the corner, purple still smudged on the wooden handle. “The Bifrost is functional. I could get two people to the space surrounding Stark’s ship, and then get everyone home.”

“Me and Rhodes,” Steve said immediately. He couldn’t put words to it, but he  _ had  _ to be there. He had to get Tony off that ship and back on Earth. He’d failed so many times in so many ways. He needed to be good enough, if only in that moment. 

“Alright, then,” Rhodes replied. “Let’s get you suited up.” 

Half an hour later, Steve stared at himself in the mirror. 

He wore a lower mark of the War Machine armor, silver metal covering every inch of skin except his face. He flexed his fingers, the gauntlets moving as if they were part of his skin; when he moved, the suit shifted intuitively, like it had been built for him. Wearing one of Tony’s creations without permission seemed wrong, but he was without other choices. 

“It looks nice.” Rhodes stood behind him, wearing the most current mark. “You’ll have to put the mask on when we get into space, though. That’s how you’ll be able to breathe.”

“How does Tony do this?” Steve whispered. “I feel like I’m suffocating.” 

“The first time, he had to. In Afghanistan.” A haunted expression crossed Rhodes’s face. Steve didn’t know much about Afghanistan—he’d never asked. “He couldn’t, for awhile, after New York. _ That  _ was a shitshow”

“Why?”

“Every time he stepped into the suit, he was back in the wormhole. Space is his worst fear. He thought he was going to die when he took that nuke into space.” Rhodes looked away, brow creased. “The thought of him out there, dying…”  

“We’re going to bring him home, Rhodes. If he wants me to leave after he’s back, then I will. I wouldn’t want him…” 

Rhodes held up his hand. “He’ll want you here. Even if he doesn’t say so. I would find him staring at the that phone you sent him, or the letter. He protected you all from Ross. I even think he wanted to keep us all safe by taking the fight… wherever he took it.”

“And I failed him.”

“He’s not without blame, Steve.” Rhodes smiled to himself, sadness bristling under the surface. “We shouldn’t keep Thor waiting.”

He could recognize a topic change when he saw it. “Of course, Rhodes.” 

As he followed him back into the communications room, he gritted his jaw, steeling himself for the mission to come.  _ Just wait, Tony _ , he thought.  _ We’re coming.  _

 

#

 

“You know you only have two hours with oxygen, right, Mr. Stark?”

Tony groaned and pushed himself to his elbows. He had ideas for projects, things that could save them, but laying facedown on the ship floor was  _ so  _ much easier. Besides, he didn’t think he could persuade his limbs to move, even if he tried. 

“Mr. Stark, are you listening to me?”

“You aren’t real,” Tony said to the apparition of Peter who’d been sitting cross-legged in front of him for hours. “You really, really aren’t real.”

“But I’m still here. Might as well enjoy it.” Not-Peter grinned, so wide and happy that Tony wished he had the strength to reach out and touch him. It didn’t matter. His hand would only cut through nothingness. “You can’t die here.”

“That’s what I thought, kid.” An infinity stone and lives lost for nothing. If he could conjure Strange, he would’ve punched him. “But here I am.”

“What would you consider your life?” another voice asked. 

Yinsen. 

The doctor stood in the doorway, arms folded, one eyebrow arched. 

“I threw it away,” Tony managed. “Like you told me not to.” 

“But look at all the good you brought.”

“All the good.” He stopped himself from scoffing as he glanced at his hand—the smudged line of Peter’s ashes lining a scabbed, dirty cut. “Why are you here?”

“Honestly, because your cut is infected, and you are running out of oxygen. You feel that pain in your head?” Yinsen knelt by him and smiled gently. “You’re dying, Stark. You always knew you would die in space. The universe is holding you hostage.”

“But you have to fight, Tony,” Peter said. “You have to come back to us.”

“To me.” Pepper appeared at his side, and the air around his hand warmed, like someone cradled his hand. “Don’t you want to come home to me?”

“More than anything.” Tears came to his eyes. Pepper didn’t even  _ know _ . She didn’t know that he loved her more than anything. She didn’t know that the thought of her laugh carried him through the day. She didn’t know that she’d saved him more times than a person should be able to save someone. And she didn’t know because he’d never told her. “More than anything, honey, but I don’t think I’ll make it.” 

He touched the wound on his side, feeling heat radiate from it. He needed antibiotics, stitches, more than what Nebula found on this ship. No. He definitely wouldn’t make it to Earth. 

“I’m not going to make it,” he said out loud, testing the words. They felt right. 

A strangled, angry sound came from the doorway. Nebula stood with her arms folded, dark eyes boring into him. “I am many things, Terran,” she snarled. “But do not force me to be optimistic, as well. That’s your function on this ship.”

Tony managed a half smile. “You’ll miss me, won’t you?”

“Your presence is not entirely unwelcome.”

“And…” He swallowed hard. “You’ll remember me, won’t you? You’ll remember what I did? And who my… the kid was?” God, he hadn’t even thought about May enough. Had she made it? “You have to find his aunt if you get to Earth. May Parker. She needs to know what happened him. You have to tell her he was a hero. That I’m sorry.” 

Nebula cocked her head, silent for a long moment. “I can’t do that. You’ll have to survive and tell her yourself.” 

“Nebula, please.” His voice quivered. 

“Alright, Stark.” She laid her hand on his shoulder; he waited for the accompanying current of panic at being touched, but something inside him settled. “You have my word.”

“Nobody’s coming, Nebula,” she said.

“I know,” she replied. “We’re alone.” 

 

#

 

When Steve stepped onto the ship at the coordinates Tony was able to send, it was like stepping into a mausoleum. 

A haunted, almost hallowed, silence reverberated throughout the skeleton-like ship. Thor waited outside, guarding the vessel, but Steve walked through it next to Rhodes, grimacing at the turned-out cabinets and scorched, damaged pieces. How had Tony survived?  
“I’ll search one end and you search the other?” Rhodes said. 

Steve nodded, continuing on as Rhodes went the other way. Every footstep he took in the suit landed softly, defying gravity, but the  _ thud  _ still echoed. Dread settled over him and intensified as he went further without seeing Tony. 

“Tony?” he called.

And then he saw him.

He laid curled into a weak ball in the corner, arm outstretched toward the Iron Man mask and scattered tools. His chest moved, but only weakly. Steve’s breath caught in his throat before he rushed forward.

“Oh, Tony.” Steve knelt next to him, daring to remove the War Machine mask. His head spun, but he touched a metal-encased hand to Tony’s battered, too-thin face. He didn’t move. Steve pushed up Tony’s black tank top—trying to ignore the visible ripple of his ribs under his skin—and hissed. An angry red stab wound, coated in nanotech, ripped through his torso, the wound irritated on his back, too. When Steve touched it, Tony moaned, eyelids fluttering. 

“Nebula.” Tony shuddered. “Nebula.”

Steve blinked away unexpected tears. “You have to hang on, Tony.”

“Where’s Peter?” he slurred. “Where is he?”

“We’ll find him.” Steve detached the oxygen mask from the back of his suit and secured it over Tony’s mouth. “We’ll find him when we get back to Earth, I promise.” 

As he went to lift Tony, a solid force hit him from behind. Steve raised his hands to fight, but another hit landed him flat on his back. A slender, blue-skinned bald woman stood over him, teeth bared and a knife in hand.

“You do not touch him,” she snapped. She shook her head and gasped.

“I want to help,” Steve said. “Who are you?”

“Who are  _ you _ ?”

“Steve Rogers. I’m here to help him. And you. We have oxygen masks. Please.” He struggled to his knees, raising his hands over his head. “I just want to bring him back to Earth.”

“Are you an Avenger?” She pronounced  _ Avenger  _ carefully, like she’d never had the chance to wrap her tongue around the word before. 

“Yes.” A voice in his head told him it wasn’t true, but he ignored it. If Tony needed him to be an Avenger, he’d be a goddamn Avenger. “I’m a friend. I want to help him.”

Nebula clenched her jaw. “Then help him.” 

“Okay. Okay, thank you.” He crawled back to Tony, pressing three fingers to his neck. His pulse was weak. Thready. But there. “Rhodes! Have him. On me!” 

Rhodes barreled into the room, removing his mask. “Jesus.”

“I know.”

“Tony. Hey, Tones.” Rhodes’s voice cracked as he slid to his knees next to Tony. “Eyes open for me, buddy.”

“Rhodey,” Tony murmured.

“Yeah. What’d I say about riding without me?”

“No more fun-vee.”

Rhodes made a choked noise, face crumpling, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.”

“Rhodey. Tell Pepper…” He shuddered again, eyes crinkling around the edges and a vague smile forming. “You came. Both of you.”

“Stay with me,” Steve said. “Stay with me, Tony.”

“You came for me.” Tony closed his eyes and exhaled. 

His chest stilled. 

A dull sound rang in Steve’s ears. Vaguely, he heard himself saying Tony’s name over and over, but the roar encompassed his voice. Next to him, Rhodes shook Tony, his voice growing more urgent. Steve sat back, staring at the wrecked Iron Man helmet in the corner.  _ He  _ caused this. He brought Tony to this point, to this place, to this death. 

A hand cracked across his face. When he blinked, Nebula leaned close to his face, eyes bright and lips curled into a snarl. “ _ Do  _ something. You’re supposed to be useful, idiot.”

Steve closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, whispering a prayer to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in. 

Then, he began compressions. 

He grunted, pressing his hands into Tony’s chest again and again. “Please,” he murmured. He tilted Tony’s head back and breathed air into his lungs, then waited for a moment. Nothing. Steve immediately restarted compressions. “Come on, Tony. Come on.” He breathed for him again, gripping Tony’s chin lightly.

Nothing. 

“Cap,” Rhodes said as he began again. “Cap, it isn’t working.”

“I’m going to bring him back, Rhodes.” He meant it more than almost anything he’d ever said, short of his promises to Bucky. Tony Stark would breathe again, and drag in another breath, then another. Breath after breath, he would take on the world, and Steve would be there. 

One of Tony’s ribs cracked under his hands. Another. He took in as much air as he could, then forced air into Tony’s lungs. Steve fell to his hands and knees, breathing hard.

Tony dragged in a rattly breath. 

“Oh, Jesus. You with us, Tones?” Rhodes replaced the oxygen mask over Tony’s mouth, then touched the side of his face. When Tony only mumbled in response, Rhodes’s brow creased. “We have to get him back to Earth. He’s just breathing.” He turned to the blue woman. “And you, ma’am. I don’t know how you aren’t having problems.”

“I can’t go to Earth.” She sneered at Rhodey. “I have better things to do than associate with Terrans.” 

“With all due respect, does that include dying in space?”

“Nebula.” Tony coughed violently. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’ll get Thor.” Rhodes stood and pointed at Tony. “Keep him stable.”

Alone with the blue woman—Nebula—and Tony, Steve’s heart pounded. She glared at him, stroking the knife attached to her hip. Steve positioned himself between her and Tony, but when her shoulders tensed, he realized she wasn’t afraid—she was protecting him. 

“I wouldn’t hurt him,” he said. 

“Are you Steve Rogers?” she asked. 

“I am.”

“He spoke of you in his sleep. He apologized to you.”

“Yet you’re afraid of him.”

“I fear nobody. Thanos took that away from me.” She took the knife from her belt and twirled it between her mechanical fingers. “But when I asked him who you were, he wouldn’t answer. He became timid. Stark and I have only had each other more company, and he is not timid. That means you wronged him.” 

“I did.” He touched Tony’s wrist lightly, feeling for a pulse. “But I want to do right by him.”

Her face hardened. “I had a sister once. She told me something similar.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was murdered.” 

Nebula sheathed her knife as Rhodes and Thor reentered the room. When Thor’s eyes landed on Tony, he stopped swinging his axe and exhaled. “He,” Thor began, “does not appear to be among the living.”

“He’s alive.” Steve pressed his fingers to Tony’s wrist, harder than before. Thready pulse. Still there. “Get us home. All of us.”

 

#

 

Nebula did not like Earth. 

She decided as soon as her feet touch dewy grass and looks up to the night sky, thinking of Quill’s oxygen-deprived ship floating amongst the stars for eternity. That could’ve been them. 

Steve Rogers, Stark’s other friend, and the man with the axe seemed to forget her as people rushed from the expansive building with medical equipment. Face contorted, Rogers lifted Stark onto a stretcher, hand lingering on his chest. Nebula imagined slapping it away. Stark’s friends barked orders as medical personnel replaced Stark’s oxygen mask, put an IV in his arm, and took his vital signs. Nebula fell into the shadows as they wheeled him inside, walking in Rogers’s footsteps and following him to the window looking into the operating theater. People tossed around medical terms beyond her understand, but she knew oxygen deprivation could be deadly, especially for fragile Terrans. 

Rogers leaned his forehead against the glass, his anguished expression reflecting back. “I know you’re there.”

Nebula coiled her body and came to his side. Without the armor, he still towered above her, much like Quill had, but his muscles sagged, like he’d crawled from the grave and longed to return. When he sighed, everything frightening about him faded. 

“Do you have questions for me?”

“Who are you to him?”

“I don’t even know. I think we were friends, once. Teammates. I care for him.” Rogers turned his head away, the dark bags under his eyes heavy in fluorescent light. If she moved to slit his throat, she didn’t think he could defend. “I thought he was dead. I lost the person who mattered most to me, and I thought Tony was gone, too, and having him…” Rogers rubbed his face and tired eyes. “I’m talking too much.”

Nebula didn’t reply. She didn’t have the words to express anything he needed. If he cared about Tony so much, why hadn’t he come to Titan with him? 

But Rogers wasn’t her problem.

Thanos was, and the wizard said Stark was the key to defeating him.

And perhaps she didn’t mind Stark’s existence. 

She followed the stretcher as they wheeled Stark into a white-walled room. The nurse fidgeted with her sleeves and shot what she  _ believed  _ to be covert glances at Nebula, but Nebula merely laid a knife across her lap and met her stare. 

“Do you have any issues?” the nurse asked. “Colonel Rhodes said you were with—”

“When will he wake up?” Nebula countered. 

The nurse tugged at her sleeve and tucked a stray hand of hair behind her ear, eyes glued to the floor. “It’s hard to say if—”

She wrapped her fingers around the blade’s hilt. “ _ When _ ?”

“If Mr. Stark wakes up, it will be within a few days.” She left the room, head still bowed, but Nebula settled in, studying Stark in the bed. He’d been active in the ship, hating to be inactive. His presence had loomed, taking up space. Admittedly, she liked that. What she  _ didn’t  _ like was his stillness. His smallness. Against the white sheets, his ribs bound and oxygen mask covering his mouth, he seemed broken. 

She didn’t like thinking things could be broken.

“Wake up, Terran,” she whispered. “You have no right to die.” 

 

#

Tony came to in flashes. 

Voices floated in and out, indistinguishable. Fingers grazed his wrist or face. His surroundings fogged, enveloping him in a misty unconsciousness. Warmth lured him into a safe place. Maybe, one day, Peter, Pepper, and Rhodey could meet him here. 

But he knew for now, he had to go to them. 

When he opened his eyes, sharp pain shot through his torso. He wanted to say something along the lines of  _ what the fuck _ , but his mouth tasted like sandpaper. 

“Good. You’re awake.” 

He blinked. Nebula sat in the corner, elbows resting on her knees and eyes focused on some point in the distance. He wanted to twist to follow her gaze, but his ribs protested even the small movement. 

“Are we dead?” Tony managed to croak. 

“Alive. In your home, from what I gather from Rhodes.” She grimaced, lips curling into a sneer. “And Rogers?”

“Rogers?” Tony’s heart thudded. “He’s here?”

“He pulled us from the spaceship. When your heart stopped, he performed CPR. Broke two of your ribs.” She sniffed, showing how much she liked  _ that _ . “But you’re home.”

“And you’ve been waiting while I was asleep?” 

She nodded curtly.

“Careful. Someone’s going to think you care.”

“I think I said something similar to you once,” someone said in the doorway. 

Rhodey. 

A small gasp escaped him before he could help it. Rhodey moved toward the bed, tears in his eyes. 

“Nebula, can you give us a moment?” Rhodey asked. 

Nebula shifted her shoulders back, but nodded again. When she looked at Tony, he saw a glimpse of something new, yet something that had simmered under her prickly exterior—a whisper of fear, something she hadn’t been allowed to feel.

“I promise I won’t keel over, yeah?” Tony grinned, which eased the tension in her body. She left, keeping her eyes fixed on him the entire time.

Once she was gone, Rhodey sat on the edge of his bed and handed him a red solo cup. “All the ice you want,” he said. “Keep you from talking for a few minutes.”

“Nothing could stop me,” Tony said automatically. 

“Tony.” Rhodey’s voice cracked as he laid a hand on his shoulder. “Please. You don’t have to be like this.”

“Okay.” Something inside him deflated. “Pepper?”

“Perfectly fine. She’s en route to us now. Happy… didn’t make it.” He massaged his temple. “But Stark Industries led the primary relief effort, next to Wakanda. Pepper was a superstar. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. She maintained you were alive and out there.”

Tony closed his eyes. A terrible feeling that had been welling inside him for weeks, like wind bending a tree over and over, and he knew breaking was only a matter of time. Before he could catch himself, the words spilled from him.

“I lost him, Rhodey. He was there, and then.” Tony snapped his fingers. “Gone. He fought it, too, like he knew what was happening. The others just went. Not him.” 

“Tony—”

“I knew we would lose this one. Nebula says Steve is here? Where was he?” 

Even as he said it, though, he realized he didn’t mean it. He hadn’t sought Steve out, either. Hadn’t called. The phone seemed to be a surefire way to render the vision Wanda gave him true. He’d known this was the real fight. He hadn’t wanted it to be the  _ last  _ one. 

“Peter’s  _ gone _ .” 

And the tears he’d fought spilled over. 

Once he started crying, he couldn’t stop. He wondered if when Steve broke his ribs to bring him back to life, fragments of bone had pierced his heart, as the shrapnel had years ago. It would explain the pain. His body ached, felt limp and useless. Even if he slept for a year, he’d still wake exhausted, with more to fight. Because the fight would never,  _ never  _ end. He would always lose the people he loved. 

No matter what he did. 

“Oh, Tony.” Rhodey pulled Tony close to his chest in a strong hug. “We’ll fix this.”

_ We can’t,  _ Tony thought. 

He allowed himself to sob into Rhodey’s shoulder and come undone.

 

#

 

From where he sat down the hall, Steve heard Tony’s sobs. He understood. He empathized. In the days after the snap, once there was nothing left to do, Steve found himself alone in his room. There, he’d broken. He thought his tears would fill the room, then the palace, then maybe an ocean. When he froze after putting the plane in the water, numbness claimed cell after cell until his body shut down. Then, he’d fought it. In Wakanda, he welcome it.

Here, he folded his hands together and pressed them to his forehead, in the way he used to pray.  _ Remember when you were Catholic?  _ a nasty voice in his head said.  _ Remember when you believed in God? When you believed in goodness?  _

He’d left a lot of himself in the ice, and more in Siberia, and even more on the Wakandan forest floor with Bucky’s ashes. 

After awhile, Tony’s sobs subsided. Rhodey left the room and walked the other way, talking to someone quietly on the phone. Steve tapped his foot against the floor, considering for a long time, before standing and walking to Tony’s room. He stood in the doorway, hands folded behind his back, and cleared his throat. 

Tony looked up. 

He’d forgotten how intense Tony Stark’s gaze could be. Even with red-rimmed, swollen eyes, his gaze bored into Steve, considering, yet somehow timid. He shifted, but immediately winced and touched his bandaged ribs. 

Steve waited for Tony to say something, but when confronted with silence, he inhaled sharply. “Hey, Tony.”

Tony quirked his lips to the side, almost sadly. 

Still nothing. 

Steve pulled a chair from the corner to sit by Tony’s bedside. Tony looked away. 

“I’m sorry about your ribs,” Steve said. “I… panicked. You weren’t breathing.”

Tony exhaled, turning toward Steve. He grinned—so fake that it cut through Steve viciously—and forcibly relaxed his shoulders. This was the mask he donned, the role he played for the press. “No biggie. You did what you had to do, and you rescued me from—”

“You asked me how we planned to beat the alien threat,” Steve blurted. “Years ago. I told you we’d do it together, and when you said we’d lose, I said we’d do that together, too. I failed you, Tony. In so many ways.” Steve exhaled, feeling tears pulse in his eyes again. “I won’t sit here and list all the ways I did. You know.”

Tony closed his eyes and turned his head away. 

“And when I thought you were dead, I knew I needed to make it up to you. Somehow. I pray that I did. I pray that I can, if I haven’t. I—”

Tony held up his hand. “I can’t do this.”

“Right.” Steve stood. “I’ll go.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. God, you really are dramatic, aren’t you?” Tony curled his hand into the sheets. “I can’t take another fight, Steve. I don’t know how we come back from this.”

Steve slowly lowers himself into the chair, looking out the window rather than at Tony. It’s raining today. Bucky always liked the rain. During the war, Bucky would stand shirtless outside in the downpour, arms stretched out and chin tipped toward the clouds. If the Commandos were still asleep, Steve would join him and run his hands over’s Bucky’s chest, kiss his rain-soaked lips. 

Those days were in the ice, too.

“Me either,” he admitted. 

“I thought you would have a plan,” Tony said.

“I thought you would have one.”

“Looks like we’re fucked, then.” He laughed, and despite everything, Steve joined. Tony tossed his head back and gripped his ribs, but he kept laughing, humorlessly, maniacally. Steve wiped his eyes and giggled. There was nothing funny, but he hadn’t laughed in so long, and it felt like relieving the pus in a blistering wound. 

“I don’t think we’re finished yet,” Steve said. 

Tony unfurled his fingers. “You don’t think?”

“No.” Steve smiled, meaning it for the first time in awhile. “We still have fight in us.”

 

#

 

Outside Tony’s room, Rhodes bowed his head and smiled.

Maybe they had a chance at recovering from this. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please feel free to drop a comment and let me know what you think :)


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